Wheeling-Dealing

This is in response to “Skateworld Rolls Away” (Cover Story, September 2). I’ve been an active participant in the rallies, and I’ve been at some of the meetings of Bayside, and you have completely spelled out exactly what we’ve been trying to get out to the public, that what Donna Frye and Bayside and the board members are doing is just downright wrong. It’s all backhanded. I just want to thank you for putting it out there the way you did in your article. We’re desperately trying to save our rink, and it’s going to be a tragedy if they let it go across the street and become Bayside. We don’t need indoor soccer, as they’ve proposed and already have a tenant for. You can play soccer anywhere in this city outside, but there’s nowhere else to go in this city to congregate for skaters. There’s no other facility for anyone that covers the difference in ages and races and ethnicities in one location, year-round, almost every night and day of the week.

Elizabeth Spillane
San Diego

Skateworld Jump-Start

Regarding Joe Deegan’s article “Skateworld Rolls Away” (Cover Story, September 2). While the photo of Skateworld was backwards and two photos were mislabeled, I felt it to be a fair representation of what is occurring in our community. I was as paranoid as the next guy over why we weren’t aware of the MRW project. Apparently, when developers respond to a City Redevelopment Agency request for proposal, the developers do not divulge their design plans until their proposal is accepted. It’s a competition. Following the formal acceptance, community input is requested in the form of local workshops. It’s kind of cart-before-the-horse to me, but this is the order of things.

Linda Vista needs a catalyst to jump-start itself. There are many positive points about living in this part of the city, and the revitalization potential is undeniable. I agree we may be unsophisticated on when to push city hall, and campaign contributions are probably low, but community leaders volunteer countless hours trying to make a difference. Because Councilmember Frye dislikes redevelopment (“it displaces people”), area leaders continue to sit on their hands, becoming frustrated over a lack of revitalization in an area conducive to infill development.

How can this wonderful community unite? We need to maintain the historical significance of the Skateworld building, be proud of Linda Vista’s contribution to San Diego history, and get the right project in place. Eleanor Roosevelt did not dedicate one of the nation’s first planned shopping centers for nothing. That’s one of our claims to fame! The dedication ceremony took place inside the Skateworld building, an armory at the time. We owe Gary Stang and his parents a debt of gratitude for preserving the building and running an excellent recreational business. They are good people.

It may take a larger developer with a bigger budget to continue the preservation and build a signature piece that provides a new beginning. A good point was made on forming a Linda Vista Project Area Committee. This was addressed at the Linda Vista Planning Group meeting of August 23. It’s unfortunate it wasn’t formed before now. The future developer will need our informed ideas.

Janet Kaye
Linda Vista

Not God’s Victims

I strongly object to the cartoon-commentary of Neal Obermeyer in the September 2 Reader, page 3.

His four-panel cartoon shows God kicking California hard with three problems: (1) “unemployment,” (2) “state and local budget deficits,” (3) “water shortages”…and then the fourth panel with God rearing up to kick the state with (4) “overdue massive earthquake.”

Hey, Neal — and everybody in California — God had nothing to do with numbers one through three (unemployment, deficits, and water shortages). We did all that to ourselves.

As for number four (overdue massive earthquake), maybe it isn’t God but the regular geologic workings of the earth, or maybe the planet is rejecting us for a number of reasons.

Time to take responsibility for our own failures.

God didn’t do it to us.

Chris Bajkiewicz
via email

Slew Of Slammer Stories

I love the article/story on the jail environment (“Back on the Street,” Feature Story, September 2). More people need to learn about what occurs in jails. Food, schedules, activities, relationships, guards, etc. The story was a rerun. Good enough to run twice. Please start a batch of jail stories. People need to know. It will give them knowledge of what occurs, when most people have no idea. It can educate and inform future voters at the polls. Thank you, Michael Jackson, for sharing your stories, and I hope to read more!!

J. Callister
via email

Turn To Psalms 131

Letter-writer John Pertle (Letters, September 2) objected to several biblical passages contradicting Calvinism that I mentioned in a previous letter (August 26).

One reason I have trouble mindlessly accepting anything John Calvin wrote is that he was not able to support his ideas with Christian love, sound reasoning, and biblical authority.

Instead, he dedicated his life to having people who disagreed with him executed, such as Michael Servetus, Jacques Gruet, and many of the “Libertines” in Geneva. He was not very Christ-like.

The problem with citing a particular verse as evidence of a truth is that all other passages relating to that truth are excluded. Usually, there are several passages of Scripture that bear on any given topic, and we should strive to understand each verse as it conforms to every other verse.

For instance, Jesus’ teaching about the innocence of children in Matthew 18 was expanded upon in chapter 19 and can also be found in numerous other passages, such as Psalms 131, I Corinthians 14:20, I Peter 2:2, Mark chapters 9 and 10, Luke chapters 9 and 18, and so on.

The message is clear that we must return to the purity and innocence that we had as young children before we can enter the kingdom of heaven.

To blindly claim that a biblical passage does not really mean what it plainly says is a bit dishonest. If we need “volumes” to explain a single chapter, rather than to just accept what it actually says, then perhaps there is a problem with the explanation.

When the proponents of “the total depravity of mankind” saw that the very existence of Jesus disproved their premise, they decided that “moral depravity” could only be inherited from fathers. This was very convenient since Jesus had no earthly father.

Well, this contrivance created some new problems. It was Eve who sinned first and then enticed Adam to sin, making her responsible not only for her own sin but for Adam’s sin as well. As the more culpable sinner, why is it that Eve did not develop a “sinful nature” and pass it on to her offspring as Adam did?

If this “sinful nature” can only be inherited from the father, then it must be carried by a gene on the Y chromosome. Since the human genome has been mapped, exactly which gene is it that carries the trait of “moral depravity”?

The real problem with this theory is that it directly contradicts Hebrews 4:15, which told us that Jesus was tempted in all things just as we are. Chapter 2 of Hebrews said that Jesus was made just like us in all things and suffered the same temptations that we all face.

Paul told us in Philippians chapter 2 that Jesus gave up His deity while He was in the flesh. He conducted His life as a human in complete obedience to the Father, even to the point of death, as an example that each one of us must try to do the same.

If Jesus had not inherited the same human weaknesses as the rest of us, then He would have been incapable of committing sin, and His sinless life would have been meaningless to us.

It is precisely because Jesus was vulnerable to the same temptations we have that He was able to become our Intercessor before the Father. The fact that He was human, but remained sinless, made Him the perfect sacrifice on our behalf.

You cannot have it both ways. Either Jesus was made just like us with the same weaknesses and temptations, or His sinless life was a charade, making Christianity a sham.

So how do we return to the purity we had as young children? Peter gave us a clue in chapter 2 of Acts. We must get rid of our sins by repenting of them and being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for their remission.

From this obedient act of faith we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are saved from this perverse age, and we are added to the church by the Lord. A practical illustration of baptism is found in Acts 8:26 through 39, where Philip baptized the Ethiopian (in water).

Jim Crooks
Oceanside

All? Not All

In the September 2 issue, there was a letter entitled “Spanish Tummy and Pollyanna Creep.” Don Bauder’s reply to that, regarding unemployment, the first half of his statement is negated by the last half of his statement because a lot of people just forget to look for work or give up on looking for work, so the word “all” does not apply in that case.

Dale Thompson
Clairemont

Clear Heads For Lemon Grove

We greatly appreciate Dorian Hargrove’s investigative reporting and clarity on the subject of disincorporation (“Big Problem for Little Lemon Grove,” “City Lights,” August 26). Lemon Grove will not now, nor will it ever, disincorporate. Home of the Big Lemon and Big Mural, our community has a distinguished history that began in the mid-19th Century and continues into present time — a period when every city, large and small, in America is under economic siege.

For the record, our sales tax initiative was organized by Ilse Hanning and me. Our month and a half of intensive effort was aided by our wonderful Lemon Grove firefighters. No city council member had any role in organizing or running our effort.

Our purpose was (a) to help put a financial floor under the two major responsibilities of government: public works and public safety; and (b) democratic process: we wanted the measure placed on the November ballot so that Lemon Grove voters could vote yes or no. Unfortunately, the voters were denied that opportunity. La Mesa voters had that opportunity, and they voted to tax themselves a half-cent for 20 years. Keep that in mind next time you’re in the La Mesa Costco. One of our councilmembers, Ms. England, works in La Mesa and does a good job of promoting that community. She praised their sales tax to the skies.

Now we have six candidates running for two seats. We’re keeping an eye on those who have unconditional love for our town and no other ax to grind than its betterment. Chronic grumps who bring zip to the table don’t measure up. Experience in government, business, and philanthropy and a long track record of public service are the standard. It isn’t tough to figure out who that is.

Helen M. Ofield
Co-Chair
Save Lemon Grove Now

Sad For The World

I read with horror and disgust Rose Dawn Scott’s article “I Finally Burned My Father” (Feature Story, August 19). I noted it was originally printed January 5, 1995. I can’t help wondering how or where this warrior-survivor woman is today and how she’s doing.

In January 1992, I was getting set up to be a computer victim, heroin addict perhaps, under the innocently named Native Game. It’s 18 years later, and I still cannot have a prayer, thought, or dream of my own. Every birthright and human right raped from me, and also being used to visually violate other innocent children and people. All of you involved in this are on the same level as Ms. Scott’s father. Obviously that doesn’t bother any of you, and how sad that is for the world and everybody in it.

Barbara Jean Forbes
North Park